Mikkel Birkegaard - The Library of Shadows

The only door in the room was in the wall across from the foot of his bed. A peephole cast an accusatory eye at him from the door, which had no handle on the inside. Judging by the rivets, the door was made of metal.

For a moment it occurred to Jon that he'd been committed to an insane asylum and that the events of the past weeks were all hallucinations. That seemed in many ways a better explanation than what he'd been through, but the illusion was abruptly shattered when the door opened and Remer came in.

'Campelli,' cried Remer with a smile. 'Good to see you awake for a change.'

Jon tried to answer but couldn't get a word to cross his dry lips. Remer noticed his difficulty and went over to the bedside table to pick up the glass and offer Jon a drink. Even though the water was lukewarm, Jon accepted it gratefully and emptied the whole glass. Then he let his head drop back on the pillow and set about studying Remer. Something was different. The wounds on his face had healed, and his complexion had a completely different hue from the last time they'd met. The suit he was wearing was light-coloured, loose-fitting summer attire.

'How long have I been out?' Jon finally asked.

Remer shrugged.

'Three or four days,' he replied.

Jon shook his head. That didn't seem right to him. The sunlight, the heat, Remer's clothes. The twelve needle marks on his arms told him nothing. He had no idea what they had given him or how long an effect each injection might have had.

Remer smiled at his confusion and went over to the open door, calling something into the next room in a language that sounded to Jon like Turkish or Arabic.

'How are you feeling?' asked Remer when he returned to the bed. 'Are you in any pain? Do you have a headache?'

Jon shook his head. His back ached, and he was still slightly drowsy, but after several days in bed that was probably to be expected. And he had no intention of showing any sign of weakness to Remer.

'Were the injections really necessary?' he asked, nodding at the marks on his left arm.

'I'm afraid so,' said Remer. 'We thought it would be the safest way to move you.'

He was interrupted by a woman with a dark complexion wearing a white lab coat. Without hesitation she came through the door carrying another glass of water. She didn't look at Jon as she set the glass on the bedside table, turned and left the room. As she passed, Remer said something to her, but the words were incomprehensible to Jon.

'As I was saying,' Remer went on, throwing out his hands. 'It was better for you to be unconscious during the trip. We couldn't have you creating a scene along the way, now could we?' He laughed. 'Look on the positive side. You avoided all the queues, the waiting time and the luggage problems.'

Jon studied him carefully. Even though Remer was blatantly enjoying himself, there was nothing to indicate that he was lying.

'Where exactly am I?' asked Jon.

Katherina was not entirely sure how she had managed to get out of the school building. It was dark and her vision was clouded with tears, but somehow she had found her way up from the basement and out into the cool night air. There she had paused for a moment to get her bearings. When she heard voices and people come running from the school, she raced to the front of the building, through the schoolyard and out of the gate. Since she didn't have the car keys, that means of escape wasn't an option, so she kept on running, turning the corner at the first side street. There she stopped and pressed her back against some shrubbery as she gasped for air and tried to listen.

Only a second later she heard the front gate of the school open, followed by shouts and footsteps. Judging by the voices, there were at least three people. When she heard steps approaching, she took off running again. Behind her someone started yelling, and she ran even faster. The streets in the neighbourhood were dimly lit, and she turned down one narrow side street after another, making it possible for her to stay out of view. After a few minutes she slowed down and looked back. She stopped in the darkness between two street lights and watched as a figure appeared at the end of the street. The person paused to peer in each of the three directions offered by the intersection.

All of a sudden a dog started barking right behind Katherina and she screamed in fright. The dark shape of a big dog threw itself in a frenzy at the hedge separating them, snarling as if it were a matter of life and death. The figure at the end of the street immediately turned in Katherina's direction, and she forced herself to start running again. Her heart was pounding in her chest and it took all the self-discipline she could muster not to slow down. The footsteps behind her were getting closer, and she could clearly hear the panting of her pursuer. She turned at the next corner and ran fifteen or twenty metres to the middle of the street before slipping through a bicycle blockade. The person chasing her swore loudly. It was a man, and by the sound of it he had taken a fall, but she wasted no time in looking back.

After the bicycle blockade the street got wider, and the buildings changed from mansions to blocks of flats. Katherina was incapable of running any further; her legs could hardly hold her up, and she was more or less stumbling her way forward.

Suddenly someone stepped out of an entrance and blocked her way with arms thrown wide. There was no room to stop, and she ran right into the person, who was almost knocked over. For a moment she got tangled up in the stranger's clothes, and a smell of smoke, beer and sweat filled her nostrils.

'This way, come in here,' said a man's voice and she was pulled through a doorway.

Katherina allowed herself to be hauled along, not voluntarily but because she didn't have the strength to do anything else. She heard the door closing behind them.

'Damn it, Ole,' cried a hoarse woman's voice. 'Didn't I just tell you to go on home? We're closed.'

The man holding Katherina's arm guided her over to a chair and made her sit down.

'Gerly, you can see for yourself that she needs help,' he said in a voice that sounded as if he'd been on a drinking binge for days. 'Besides… besides, I happen to know this young lady.'

Katherina was so out of breath she couldn't focus properly and she was in no condition to confirm the man's claim. Instead, she leaned over the table and buried her head in her arms.

'Okay, Ole,' said the woman. 'But you're not getting anything else to drink.'

A door opened and Katherina gave a start.

'Out!' shouted the woman behind her. 'We're closed.'

Another man's voice, panting for air, started to protest from the doorway, but he was instantly cut off.

'We're closed, I said. Come back around noon.'

The door slammed shut and was noisily bolted.

Katherina could no longer hold back her tears; she started to sob so hard that her whole body shook. She had never seriously believed that the situation would be so dangerous. The fact that she'd been forced to abandon Jon and flee seemed utterly unreal and inconceivable, when she thought about how invincible she had felt when they were together. Katherina felt Ole's hand on her shoulder. He patted her gently, but that just made everything worse.

'Well, a cup of coffee probably wouldn't hurt,' said the woman behind them. The sound of clattering cups and the hiss of the coffeemaker felt as consoling as if someone had hugged her. Her sobs soon subsided to a faint sniffling. Slowly she lifted her head from the table and looked around.

She was sitting in a well-worn pub with heavy wooden tables and chairs upholstered in red leather. A massive bar lined one whole wall and behind it stood the woman called Gerly – a short, stout woman with a ruddy face and eyes that could undoubtedly tame even the most drunken of customers. She came over with two cups of black coffee, which she carefully set on the table.